


Kid!AU

by Dichotomous_Dragon, theladylily



Series: A Tevinter Guide to the Raising of Offspring [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoribull - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Tevinter Imperium
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:05:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7827949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dichotomous_Dragon/pseuds/Dichotomous_Dragon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladylily/pseuds/theladylily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short stories following an AU central theme: Dorian Pavus, heir of House Pavus, is a wickedly talented but rather sickly child, one whose extended family do not feel is fit to carry on the Pavus name. One day, his father brings him home a new bodyguard - a massive qunari, freshly caught on Seheron and bound into their service - and everything grows more complex from there. </p>
<p>Or, Hissrad and Dorian learn a great many things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> TheLadyLily is the true brain behind this fic. She thought up the AU and I wrote it down, and the both of us worked out the details. :)
> 
> As a blanket warning, there is plenty of fluff in this fic, but there is also violence, angst, action, and the very occasional allusion to smut (Hissrad is very much of age in this and the Adoribull is a long way off). I will probably mark each chap with the general theme, or put it in the notes at the top of each chapter.

“Oxman.” Halward Pavus’s voice was something most humans found authoritative. The elven slaves in the sprawling household certainly did, though Hissrad was quick to note that none of them had the cowering, twitchy countenance of the abused. The Pavus family slaves were well fed and clothed, and the lot of them seemed far more wary of Hissrad himself than of their masters. The lady of the house was a sharp woman, all cheekbones and blistering superiority and a pair of kohl-lined eyes that picked up much. She had taken one look at Hissrad and given Halward a single, curt nod.

“He will do.” Those eyes had fastened on Hissrad’s, then, a full two heads shorter than he, but still looming. “You will protect my son, Qunari, and you will be cared for accordingly. Do not mistake me when I say you will not like the cost of failure.” The Lady Pavus did not know what the jungles on Seheron were like but Hissrad did not bother to correct her. The sea is changeless, and so was his face. Her dismissal was as prompt as he’d guessed it would be.

His charge’s room was down the end of a long hall, a mimicry of every other room in the Pavus estate that Hissrad had seen since being purchased. The curtains were heavy and drawn, the walls painted in classical, muted shades. There were books piled about, the largest concentration near the bed, and not a toy to be seen. More details filed.

“Father?” The voice was small and wavering, infirm with what sounded like sickness, a bit of a rasp at the end. A young child, then.

“Dorian. I’ve brought your new bodyguard.” Halward stepped aside, tilting his head to beckon Hissrad forward. “Oxman, this is my son Dorian. He is your primary responsibility. You will see that he is safe at all times, am I understood?” The lad was staring at him, wide grey eyes darting to Hissrad and back. Hissrad nodded; the boy, Dorian, visibly flinched. “He is harmless to our family, Dorian. The collar and cuffs bind him to our service.” Dorian nodded, clearly agreeing because he knew he must, fear or revulsion causing him to twist his small hands into knots in his sheets. Halward appeared not to have noticed. “Dinner will be in two hours. You may stand watch until then. If he should require anything you may call the servants, or he may do so himself,” he told Hissrad, and that was that. He closed the door behind him.

Well. Locked away with his charge, Hissrad allowed his eyes to wander the room. Again he was struck by how little the place seemed fitting as a domicile for one so young.

“Erm, ser?” Dorian had wriggled higher in bed, sitting upright against his pillows. His eyes were wide in his face, grey against brown skin that had washed out after weeks of fever. “Do...you speak Tevene?”

“I do.” Hissrad replied. The deepness of his voice made Dorian startle, but the look on his face did not appear to be one of judgement. Fear, certainly. Fascination was not far behind.

“Do you...what is your name?”

“We do not have names under the Qun,” Hissrad replied, an automatic response born from years of repetition. Dorian looked as though he wanted to question, but he scrunched his nose and buried the urge for the sake of...what, appearances? They were alone, and the boy had been told Hissrad was his property. What appearances were there to maintain?

“Okay,” Dorian said slowly. Still working, that mind blazing ahead even as he stifled a cough. Hissrad had no doubt the boy was clever, given his breeding and the number of books around. The rest remained to be seen. “Is there something I should call you?”

“Your father named me Ox,” Hissrad snapped. There was enough youth in him to be angry at the degradation, training or not.

“But that is not who you are,” Dorian said finally. “Our other servants have names. You should have a name.” Hissrad looked down at Dorian, at the small human mage he’d been bought, like a weapon, like a _thing_ , to protect. He was a ‘Vint, the son of Hissrad’s captors, and an enemy of the Qun and its people. He was also a child, one who had few things beyond books and parents who, at a glance, appeared far more concerned with the concept of a child than the actuality of having one.

“Hissrad,” he said quietly. “My name is Hissrad.” Dorian visibly brightened and Hissrad, a little surprised, decided the small exchange had proven worthwhile.


	2. Farad (Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hissrad was not Dorian's first protector.

“Is it always like this?” Hissrad asked quietly, glancing down to Farad. The elf was solid of frame, considering, and his tongue cut like a knife when the Pavuses weren’t around. He mimicked Hissrad’s posture leaning against the far wall of the studio, arms folded across his chest. Together they watched Dorian’s dance tutor force the boy to repeat the same sequence of steps for the fourth time, tutting as he stumbled on the turn. Dorian’s shoulders sagged but he did not complain. It was roughly the third time Hissrad had seen him stand under his own power for more than a couple minutes. He’d been shadowing the boy for a week.

“Always,” Farad growled quietly, shaking his head. His eyes were a couple shades darker brown than his hair, pleated over one shoulder. “They push and they push. ‘A Pavus is always poised. A Pavus has impeccable manners. A Pavus must know every bloody dance for any and all court functions.’” He made a sound that suggested he’d have spat, were they outdoors. “The lad cannot get well, and still they push.”

“He’s always been sickly?” Hissrad catalogued the information as reconnaissance, though he admittedly was rather curious. For a Tevinter, Dorian was not a terrible human being. Not yet, anyway. Farad shook his head.

“It is not as you think. He got sick a few years ago and has not been right since.”

“Lingering illness, then.”

“Yes, though the assassination attempts did not help.” Hissrad did not startle, was too well trained to startle, but the information flummoxed him.

“They would kill a child?” He knew the ‘Vints were assholes, but...

“Such is their way,” Farad dismissed. “The Lord and Lady of the house are well enough, as owners go. They care for all of us, though differently.” An odd smile twisted his face, skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes. “Be happy you are their slave and not their offspring.” 

Hissrad could not imagine any reality in which he was thankful to be someone’s property. Across the room, Dorian missed his spin and tripped, small knees thudding loudly against the polished wood floor.


	3. Redcliffe Chantry (Gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many years later, they meet again.  
> (or, the boys regroup in Inquisition)
> 
> For the awesome [Doozer-Doodles](http://doozer-doodles.tumblr.com/) Tumblr prompt from ages back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the most blatant tease ever, and it's TOTALLY out of sequence, but I've had it written forever and never posted it.
> 
> So, enjoy a flash-forward of the Chantry scene and vague allusions to a bunch of crap that hasn't happened yet!

Bull recognized him as soon as he turned. In the back of his mind, perhaps he'd even realized it sooner. The man (the boy) before him had never been so practiced, so smooth nor so skilled at martial arts, but wielded his bladed staff like one who knew how to use it. There were flashes of familiarity there: the short jabs in between the wider arcs, brutally efficient, and the roll of the staff across his fingers, shaft spinning after the flourish? Those were moves Bull - no, _Hissrad_ \- knew, had seen and sparred against on countless occasions in a life he'd been made to forget.

Those flourishes were Farad's.

Something in Bull wrenched to a halt, watching the lean-muscled man glide between motions without a thought. He destroyed every demon that the Rift spat out, switching from staff to spell in a blink. When Herah came in the Rift roared wider and the whole scene plunged into chaos.

Bull, untrue to character, struck and killed a few, hanging back and watching as the green tear winked closed. The mage turned, panting a bit but already posturing...

Something in Bull sundered further, seeing those familiar grey eyes in so handsome a face. Bull had tried not to ponder what the boy had grown to look like, in the years since…. Dorian had always been a looker, everyone had known it, but it had been potential not yet reached. A flowerbud waiting to bloom rather than the painfully handsome visage staring back at him now. 

Bull stepped from the shadows, weapon loose in his grasp, and the effect was instantaneous. Dorian spun on one booted heel, staff a blur as he twirled it back up into the proper grip. Even before his left foot slid back to solidify his stance, the glittering, telltale blue of his barrier was shimmering down over he and Herah, arm cast out defensively as Dorian made himself a blockade between the 'threat' and the Herald.

Bull had been Hissrad, was still Hissrad, so he saw through the clash of emotions on Dorian's face: the initial pinch of a frown as he reacted; the widening of those familiar eyes as his gaze properly settled on Bull; the flinch of pain; the flare of anger.

The fact that Dorian had hesitated at all and not just struck out blindly caused a deep pang in his chest. He and Farad had taught the boy those skills, martial married with the same habits Dorian had been trained in his mannerisms since birth: assess, then act. True in fighting as well as noble bullshit.

"No." Dorian's voice was stripped of the jovial emotion from a moment before, icy in the chantry vestibule, hollow and hallowed both.

"Dorian--"

"No, Herah,” and my, such resolution in that voice, “I refuse to speak to that..that... _beast_ wearing Hissrad's face."

"He's a part of the Inquisition, Dorian," she replied quietly. "I was angry with him too, but--"

"Angry?" A smile, edges sharp as shattered glass, sliced across Dorian's handsome features, twisting them into something garish. "My dear Herah, I am not 'angry,' I am simply far too clever to be fooled." Bull couldn't fault him, not really, but seeing Dorian flinch away from Herah's comforting touch while keeping his back firmly protected from Bull...it stung much worse than he had expected. "The Qun wastes nothing, does not suffer fam--” he choked off, re-engaged with his tone hardened “Whoever that is, it isn't Hissrad. Hissrad is dead, remade in his people’s ideal image. And you," he added, tilting his head up in defiance as he leveled Bull with a truly impressive scowl, "you will do well to stay out of my way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, any and all feedback are welcome!
> 
> Send me prompts for this verse in the comments or over on [Tumblr](http://dichotomous-dragon.tumblr.com/) I will get to them all and be writing Adoribull years from now when no one else still cares, guaranteed.

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is very much prompt based so always feel free to drop suggestions (for any time frame...during their time in Tevinter, after they run, or during Inquisition...we will eventually be getting to all of that :D)


End file.
